


Because if I don't have you at least I have your memory.

by these_dreams_go_on



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-26 23:15:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12068952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/these_dreams_go_on/pseuds/these_dreams_go_on
Summary: Clarke meets Madi and realizes the two of them are connected in a way she would never have guessed.





	Because if I don't have you at least I have your memory.

**Author's Note:**

> This is an idea that just struck me and I had to go with it.

_Ark Station Codified Laws_

_Chapter 6_

_Article 3_

_Solitary Confinement_

_Prisoners that are not slated for execution shall not be interred in solitary confinement for a term longer than nine weeks, as evidence has shown that prolonged detention results in acute psychosis or the prisoner becoming actively suicidal and as such, unable to reintegrate back into society._

* * *

 

Nobody had ever asked Clarke Griffin what the worst thing she had survived was.

She’s not sure if that was because it never came up in conversation or they were afraid of the answer. After all, who wanted to know how Wanheda was made?

Still, even after everything she had endured on earth, she would say without a doubt that solitary confinement had been the worst.

The cell they’d kept her in had been soundproofed, so she couldn’t reveal the secret for which her father had been floated and she condemned to death. Nor could she hear any proof that the world continued to exist beyond her tiny cell.

The passage of time had been noticed only because the lights were automated to turn off for twelve hours daily.

Disassociation had left her digging her nails into her calf to see whether she was real, whether this wasn’t a prolonged nightmare.

There was a drawer in the door where food could be passed through, but only one side could be opened at a time, to ensure that Clarke couldn’t contact anybody. At best she could judge, it had been two months- and five days after she had sent her tray back uneaten- before she had found two pieces of charcoal tucked under her plate.

She had used her daily ration of water to wash away the tally on the wall she’d marked with her own blood.

Drawing had kept her as sane as it was possible when she had known that the only way she would ever leave her confinement would be on her eighteenth birthday when she would be lead to the airlock for her execution.

So, when she can finally open her eyes, some immeasurable time after Praimfaya had roared overhead and when the boiled and weeping sores start to heal on her brutalized skin, she has flashbacks to her time in the Skybox.

Except this would not be as bad, she tells herself firmly. There were tasks for her to complete, ways for her to pass the time, she had space in which to move around.

Even if once again, she was alone.

* * *

 

_Purgatory._

She had heard Bellamy describe it once, when he was telling a horror story- his had always been based in history and needed explanations- as the place between Heaven and Hell.

Clarke has no notion of Heaven and has enough of an experience of Hell to know that her life after Praimfaya isn’t it. But she also knows that being the one person left alive to wander the Earth, no proof that her friends in the bunker or those in space had survived, is torture.

Therefore, when she walks across the now dried lake, stepping on the bones of fish and Murphy’s monster, she thinks that this is her divine punishment.

For Ton DC, for Mt Weather, for failing to find a way for everyone to survive.

She was the Commander of Death and ironically, the only one left alive to wander the earth.

Or so she thought.

Her feet lead her to the Dropship, somehow still standing and she’s sitting in the dirt before it, losing herself in memories when something brushes through her knotted, mangled hair.

She thinks it’s a phantom of her insanity, so she ignores it until the thing accidentally pokes her neck.

And the thing isn’t cold and sharp but warm and wet.

She turns slowly and sees a young girl standing before her.

“Enti,” (hungry) she had said, holding out a hand, “Thosti.” (thirsty)

Wordlessly, Clarke had reached into her bag and handed her the unopened flask, watching as she drank greedily and somehow felt as nourished as if she had consumed the water herself.

* * *

With Madi came the return of Clarke’s desire to live.

She found routine and purpose in the young girl who needed to be fed, protected, taught gonasleng, provided for and loved.

She was the one who found the radio and told Clarke to call her friends and let them know she was okay.  

She was fascinated by Clarke’s stories of the Ark and by the pictures Clarke drew of her friends and family.

One morning, when the sun had barely risen, Clarke finds Madi sitting by the edge of the cave they’d called home for the last few weeks, a piece of coal from the fire clenched in her hands as she frowned down at the notepad.

“What’re doing, ai strik nitblida?” (my little nightblood) she asked, touching her shoulder,

“I’m gonna draw ai biga sis” (my big sister) she declares, the tip of her tongue poking from the corner of her mouth, “She was a hero like your Bellamy.”

Clarke grins at the idea of Bellamy being hers and focuses her attention on cooking breakfast.

At seven years old, Madi is easily distracted by food and the drawing is forgotten until afternoon.

Clarke has no experience with children, other than Charlotte but knows to praise Madi for her portrait, noting the squiggles that are meant to be braids and the heavily circled eyes are probably meant to be war marks. She figures that the weird dot on the forehead meant the poor woman had an unfortunate mole.  

“Ai biga sis don nitblida,” (my big sister was a nightblood) Madi announces, proudly,

“Powerful one! She fought battles and won best battles.”

Clarke’s air leaves her body and she’s dimly aware of being able to feel her heart pounding in her chest. “Your sister was Lexa?” she stammers and Madi nods eagerly,

“Uh huh! She was best.”

She manages to swallow and kisses the top of Madi’s head, “Yes,” she murmurs, “She was.”

Clarke does not believe in destiny or fate, and she sure as hell didn’t believe in the religion that had sprung up around Becca and her narcissism.

But she also didn’t think it was a coincidence that the only other person left on the ground, the one who had brought her back to life and would see her through the next five years, was the younger sister of the woman she had loved.

Lexa had believed that on her death, her spirit would pass onto the next Commander and her love for her would remain within the Flame to ensure her protection.

But it seemed that in lieu of a commander, her spirit had somehow done one better and sent her someone Clarke would love as her own family.

“Thank-you, Lexa,” she whispered to herself as Madi stoked the fire, lifting up a twig to watch the end burn, “I’ll look after her, I promise.”

 

 


End file.
